The Side Note

The biggest change in mobile marketing last year was the push notification. Sadly, many business owners couldn’t get out of their own way and have started abusing push notification with non-critical updates. It likely started out of desperation, hoping a constant barrage of info will lead to consumer action.  Unfortunately, for push notification abusers that action is usually to uninstall the app. As a reminder, the best practice is to push info that is relevant to the user and focused on meeting their needs.

With the combination of improved near field communications and business owners punished for push-spam (is that a new term? if so…trademark!) we have compiled our list of mobile marketing predictions for 2013.

Mobile Coupons

2013 will see an increase in mobile coupons. For the business owner, mobile coupons are quicker, cheaper, flexible, convenient and always with your customer. Candidly speaking, doesn’t that sound like marketing perfection? With the improvement of near field communications, you can be timely as well. Imagine sending a 15 percent coupon for today’s special to one of your customers, at lunchtime when they walk within 1,000 feet of your front door. OK, now that is marketing perfection.

Loyalty Marketing

Mobile users will demand an overhaul in loyalty marketing. For example, Denver-based Tokyo Joe’s has an addict card for loyal customers. Buy 12 entrees and the 13^th is free. I carry around a punch card for what amounts to a 9 percent discount the 7^th time my wife and I go to Tokyo Joe’s. What would really be beneficial is if the loyalty card was tied to my phone. It can be a Tokyo Joe’s app or an aggregator app for loyalty programs like Foursquare.

Not only do I want to combine these programs, I also want to streamline my apps. For this blog, I checked the last time I opened a sample of 20 apps. Five of them were only opened once. If the app doesn’t provide me regular benefits, I’ll quickly become app-athetic. (is that a new term? if so…trademark!).

Social Action

The final mobile marketing prediction is a huge increase in apps adding social action widgets similar to the Facebook “like” button. Social sharing is the equivalent of electronic word of mouth marketing. As businesses get better at forging relationships with their customers in social environments, they will be able to run a sophisticated SCRM program (social customer relationship management).

Let us know your mobile marketing prediction for 2013, and if you think this will be the year of fully integrated mobile marketing. Share your thoughts with us on Facebook at Weise Communications and follow @Weise_Ideas on Twitter.